Ghost Town of Butler, Florida

Butler and Butler’s Ferry (Butler Landing) as shown on a 1935 map of Jackson County, Florida.

Butler was a thriving Chattahoochee River community during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is a ghost town today.

The village was named for the Butler family that once lived there. At its height it was the location of a store, sawmill, gristmill, turpentine still, cotton gin and paddlewheel steamboat landing.

Butler was demolished in 1951, however, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acquired the site during the construction of the Jim Woodruff Dam. Lake Seminole, the 37,500 acre reservoir formed by the dam, was expected to flood community. The waters of the lake did rise and inundate parts of the site, but much of old Butler remains above water.

Click the play button to watch our special tour of the Ghost Town of Butler, Florida:

If you would like to visit the site of Butler, it is located within the Apalachee Wildlife Management Area 6.2 miles north of U.S. 90 at Sneads, Florida. The community surrounded the intersection of River Road (SR-271) and Butler Road.

This map will help you find it:

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11 thoughts on “Ghost Town of Butler, Florida”

Great story. I just got off the phone with Dillon Kilpatrick. My maternal grandmother was a Kilpatrick and I wanted to see if there was a connection, it would have to go back to North Carolina, but we had a long chat. He knew all my MacKinnon relatives, my Gortemoller connections, as well as family friends, Penders, Fites, McMullians, and others. Got to talking about Cohassee plantation in Jackson County, do you have any information on that? Thanks for another great story, and the chance to talk with Dillon.